SUGAR SUPPLY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18534, 9 October 1920, Page 8

SUGAR SUPPLY.

local stocks exhausted. “ Any BUgarP” “Not an ounce, madam.” The question was asked and answered, in nearly every grocery shop yesterday morning. It is the first time that the scarcity has been so general. Ihero is neither black, brown nor white sugar on the retail market. . Grocers complain that during the past four or five weeks only one shipment of raw sugar has come to their stores, while something like fifty-two tons of refined sugar have been distributed among manufacturers of confectionery. They allege that householders have to go short so that luxury trades may prosper. One storekeeper wanted to know if breweries were feeling tho “ pinch.” The latest official statement says that shipping difficulties with reference to raw sugar are being overcome, and that distribution will go on until full supplies of the refined article are available in about five or six weeks. The Government's policy is to supply with refined sugar those businesses which employ a large number of people. “ I see very little sign of relief, < . said a grocer yesterday. . “Certain clauses in the Government s distribution soheme would handicap trade, even if regular shipments were coming for- 1 ward. In effect we are to bo rationed. For every £IOOO of grocery turnover, a shop will bo given one and a half tons of sugar. That means that for every pound sterling spent a customer will receive approximately 3 1-6 pounds of sugar. Why, not so long ago, you could get six pounds of sugar on a 10s order. Anyway we won’t bo able to work under the Government’s schemo. It is impossible- The next thing will be ration cards.” Commenting on the distribution schemo, a wholesale merchant admitted that it would restrict household supplies. However, he thought that a very desirable object. New Zealand consumed nearly 60 per cent more sugar than any other country in the world, and a check was imperative. Sugar, he said, was wasted in every second household; it went down the sink from tea cups by the pound. All the time the jam factories wero short, and unable to keep up a normal output. “ Three-quarters of our works have restarted, and there is no one out of employment,” said the manager of a largo confectionery business. “We hope to get. bettor supplies of sugar next week, but our information is indefinite.”

Mr W. G. Al’Donald, chairman of the Board of 'Trade, will arrive in Christchurch this morning to discuss tho sugar position with retail and wholesale merchants.